Norfolk and Norwich Personal Injury Compensation hits £1,000,000

Accidents will happen during your daily life but two councils have realised the hard way that failure to make the local Highways safe can severely dent your budgets. In 2011/12 nearly £1,000,000 in UK personal injury compensation was paid out by Norfolk and Norwich councils combined. This astronomical figure is a direct result of increase in claims by members of the public. Huge advertising campaigns have raised awareness for personal injury compensation and the No Win No Fee promotion means that people are asking for claims when they trip, fall or hit themselves on a public highway.

The councils have a duty to investigate all personal injury compensation claims and also incur legal fees while each case is being processed. These claims are time consuming and in many cases without merit, during the 2011/12 period 74 per cent of the claims were overturned and thrown out. The process for UK personal injury compensation is complicated and lengthy taking up considerable man power and resources within the councils - another hidden cost not accounted for in the figures published.

One of the most common causes for claims is tripping on pavements which are uneven. This poses a significant challenge for local councils who need to work closely with Highways agency and local contractors to repair potential accident hotspots as soon as the problem arises. It also puts pressure on local governments to work closely with third party contractors to ensure that when they need to dig up roads or pavements for underground repairs they leave the site in good order when their work is done.

Over the last 12 months the UK personal injury compensation awarded varied enormously from £650 for an accident from a protruding sign to over £5,000 for tripping over a pothole and sustaining a new injury. One of the highest personal injury compensation payouts was £63,000 for cracked ribs, however in this case the legal costs were over £63,000!

There's no doubt that serious action needs to be taken to ensure public highways are kept safe, that pedestrians can walk confidently along the main pavements without risk of serious injury. Local councils are increasing the number of inspections and setting up incident report lines to ensure that localised problems can be dealt with efficiently to prevent large claims and serious accidents.

UK personal injury compensation claims show no sign of reducing with awareness on the increase, local authorities under pressure to cut back there is a risk of local highways falling behind in repairs. Recent bad winters have also played havoc with the pavements and large cracks appeared in many areas which posed potential hazard to pedestrians, during this harsh weather councils need to ensure they make public away of potential dangers and encourage them only to make essential journeys.